The End of the World as We Know It

First of all, buying gold is stupid, read this Warren Buffett letter:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-buffet-thinks-investing-in-gold-is-stupid-2013-04-18

Second of all, the national debt isn't that large when compared to GDP historically:



Also, [EDIT] deficit is going down precipitously (mostly because health care costs are shrinking). Not many people know this, but we had a $71 billion budget surplus in June. Actually, according to Keynesian economics, the government should have spent more during the recession so we could remain at full employment and people would have more money to spend.

As far as personal stuff, I'm on the Warp plan: live below your means, preferably WELL below your means. In fact, retire early if you can. The math says it's actually pretty easy for most professional type people:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/

Another thing to consider, it's a possibility that very soon, with in our lifetime, med science will advance so that people can live much longer. Most people if given the chance to live 20,30,40 years longer would take it if it has a degree of life quality.

I saw a doctor who used a 3d printer to make a living kidney. Yep. They implanted it in a patient and it work for a while. I would expect this to improve.

A 20 something in England was dying of throat cancer. They  made a throat shaped matrix then put it in some solution and soon a new throat was grown, implanted and it saved his life.

The day maybe very close where need a new kidney, heart or lungs ? We'll print/grow you one in a week, maybe even with your own stem cells.

This is good and kinda bad. The population growth would explode.

mattchuck2 wrote

Second of all, the national debt isn't that large when compared to GDP historically:



Also, national debt is going down precipitously (mostly because health care costs are shrinking).

Well, no. The National debt is not going down at all. The annual deficit maybe smaller but not the debt. There is no budget surplus. We still have a annual deficit of well over 1 trillion close to 2T

Also, don't get mad, but that chart you posted is out of date badly. It shows our debt only being 67% of GDP when in fact our debt today has exceeded our GDP by about 1 trillion. Next year it will be by 2-3 trillion. The Debt is 17T + and the gdp is 16T+. so a difference of 1,,,,,1 is 10% of 10 and 5% of 20 so we're 107%ish of GDP, not 67%.

http://www.debt.org/government/   http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Comparing today to WW2 days is very misleading. Today the Gov owes WAY more than just the "national debt" AND there are WAY more people, schools, hospitals, state programs, etc dependent on Uncle Sam than back then. So, if he gets substantially short, mass pain follows.

Keep in mind this is only a small, partial picture of our NATIONAL debt. Many fed programs are underfunded. SSI, medicare and prescription drugs alone = 118T unfunded liability. There are other underfunded Fed liabilities. States, cities also have their issues.  Many pension funds are also in bad, bad shape,,, we're talking huge money.

Who's gonna bail these unfunded liabilities (200t+) out ? Nobody. Result....pain.

Problem is things are still pretty good. Merrily we go along riding the wave of being the top dog and of having the reserve currency. This won't last as these unfunded liabilities come due and people suffer from the money not being there. Huge money not being there for people will badly hurt the economy. Sure the Fed gov will scramble but it can't cover it. It's impossible. It needs trillions and trillions. The old saying " we'll grow our way out " is no longer possible.

According to this link provided by Mike, in 2012 1 of every 4 dollars we borrowed went to pay just the interest on the national debt. That's probably higher now.

http://www.debt.org/government/

Snowballs - the IMF has the Debt/GDP of the US at 104.5% but these are all statistics which can be manipulated to present any message you like. However on thing MC2 graph shows is that each time we try to have a large global foot print the uglier our financial picture looks. Does that mean we should shy away, not necessarily but it does show we can't sustain it, where you could argue the civil war was the anomaly.

The US has the power to print money, and you're right, we're the world's currency.

If things were as bad as some of you people think it is, there would be a huge flight from dollars and we'd see massive inflation. People keep saying that, and people are always wrong about it. Read your Krugman:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/opinion/paul-krugman-addicted-to-inflation.html?referrer=

Most of the time people bring up the "massive debt problem", it's because they want to enact their own political beliefs (usually they want to screw the poor, and take away social services that everyone here is going to use - Medicare, Social Security, etc.). Nobody ever seems to complain about the deficit, then say that we should spend less on the military, go after tax cheating corporations, close the carried interest loophole, or raise the top income tax rate back up to 50% like it was under Reagan.

That chart is fascinating.  

I also think gold is a joke.  It's a fear index but if the shit really hits the fan will it retain any value?

Snowballs wrote

Well, no. The National debt is not going down at all. The annual deficit maybe smaller but not the debt. There is no budget surplus. We still have a annual deficit of well over 1 trillion close to 2T

I meant the debt year over year is dropping precipitously (sorry for the confusion). And the second part of your statement is completely false. Debt last year was $680 billion, not "well over 1T, close to 2T"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/30/congratulations-america-your-deficit-fell-37-percent-in-2013/

Also, I hate it when people include "unfunded liabilities" in their sky-is-falling debt warnings. If there is the political will to pay the liabilities, they'll get paid. If not, people will shift some resources around and pay some percentage of the liabilities.

It's similar to the Social Security argument. People are scared that Social Security will run out of money or that it "won't be around when I retire", but there's a trust fund that will pay full benefits until 2030 or so, then it can pay 75% of those benefits forever, even with no changes to anything. Realistically, though, if the trust fund does run out, I'm pretty sure that people will vote for candidates that want to keep paying 100% of benefits by raising the income level that is subject to social security taxes (currently a little over $100k, it can easily go to $1 million or $10 million or whatever).

Still, if governors would stop doing this, it'd also be pretty helpful:

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/28/1317259/-Chris-Christie-is-breaking-his-own-pension-promises-Welcome-to-the-real-world-folks

The guy tells everybody to "read their Krugman" and then, in the very next fuckin' breath, complains that people use this topic "to enact their own political beliefs" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean).  Several posts later and he's linking to the Daily fuckin' Kos.  You can't make this shit up.

Political discussions here:  On one side a bunch of old, scared white men who haven't had an original thought since the Eisenhower administration and on the other some latter-day hippy who learned everything he knows about politics from the liner notes of the Beatles White Album.  

Have fun at your circle jerk boyz; I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of this soon.

Haha, whoever owns the lingerlonger alias is back! Awesome.

I didn't say it was wrong to use a debt discussion to further your own political agenda, just that people do it and you have to watch out for it.

Also, Paul Krugman has a Nobel Prize in economics, what do you have? (And don't give me that BS about Nobel Prizes being stupid because there have been some shitty Peace Prize recipients, that's a different system of award and yes, it is a bullshit way to do it, but the sciences and economics prizes have some pretty quality names).

lingerlonger wrote

The guy tells everybody to "read their Krugman" and then, in the very next fuckin' breath, complains that people use this topic "to enact their own political beliefs" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean).  Several posts later and he's linking to the Daily fuckin' Kos.  You can't make this shit up.

Political discussions here:  On one side a bunch of old, scared white men who haven't had an original thought since the Eisenhower administration and on the other some latter-day hippy who learned everything he knows about politics from the liner notes of the Beatles White Album.  

Have fun at your circle jerk boyz; I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of this soon.

Bwahahah

I'll take latter-day hippy for $100 Alex

I'm just a lowly ski instructor, but if we listened to the hippies, we would have stayed put of some pretty stupid wars that contribute an awful lot to this debt that everyone is so scared about in this thread.

mattchuck2 wrote

I'm just a lowly ski instructor, but if we listened to the hippies, we would have stayed put of some pretty stupid wars that contribute an awful lot to this debt that everyone is so scared about in this thread.

I'm not sure you're the hippy...

But at any rate, wars are really good at making money.  And thinning the herd.

lingerlonger wrote

The guy tells everybody to "read their Krugman" and then, in the very next fuckin' breath, complains that people use this topic "to enact their own political beliefs" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean).  Several posts later and he's linking to the Daily fuckin' Kos.  You can't make this shit up.

Political discussions here:  On one side a bunch of old, scared white men who haven't had an original thought since the Eisenhower administration and on the other some latter-day hippy who learned everything he knows about politics from the liner notes of the Beatles White Album.  

Have fun at your circle jerk boyz; I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of this soon.

You sound familiar.  Have we met before, perhaps on another ski forum under another name?

lingerlonger wrote

The guy tells everybody to "read their Krugman" and then, in the very next fuckin' breath, complains that people use this topic "to enact their own political beliefs" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean).  Several posts later and he's linking to the Daily fuckin' Kos.  You can't make this shit up.

Political discussions here:  On one side a bunch of old, scared white men who haven't had an original thought since the Eisenhower administration and on the other some latter-day hippy who learned everything he knows about politics from the liner notes of the Beatles White Album.  

Have fun at your circle jerk boyz; I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of this soon.

NJ for the win!!!

MikeK wrote

 But at any rate, wars are really good at making money.

Are they ? It's kind of like you make a product and then sell it to yourself, how much are you going to make ?

Suppliers to the military make money but it's at the expense of the nation so over all we lose mega money. Now a days, it's even more super expensive as America tends to rebuild nations for them.

ScottyJack wrote

lingerlonger wrote

The guy tells everybody to "read their Krugman" and then, in the very next fuckin' breath, complains that people use this topic "to enact their own political beliefs" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean).  Several posts later and he's linking to the Daily fuckin' Kos.  You can't make this shit up.

Political discussions here:  On one side a bunch of old, scared white men who haven't had an original thought since the Eisenhower administration and on the other some latter-day hippy who learned everything he knows about politics from the liner notes of the Beatles White Album.  

Have fun at your circle jerk boyz; I'm sure you'll get to the bottom of this soon.

NJ for the win!!!

he can run but can not hide

i'd actually be interested in hearing his point of view on this topic

Snowballs wrote

MikeK wrote

 But at any rate, wars are really good at making money.

Are they ? It's kind of like you make a product and then sell it to yourself, how much are you going to make ?

Suppliers to the military make money but it's at the expense of the nation so over all we lose mega money. Now a days, it's even more super expensive as America tends to rebuild nations for them.

I meant exactly that.  They are good at making money for a select few.  Dick Cheney always comes to mind...

Now it's gett'n good, where's the popcorn?

Fodder.

http://news.yahoo.com/india-central-bank-chief-warns-another-market-crash-190447924--finance.html

The popcorn emoticon is a thread killer.  I'm guessing this is also the end of lingerlonger.

So india dude - how should I respond?